Author's Note: I just love reading my reviews…a big thank you to everyone who has done so! Special thanks to Europa for the positive feedback on the little comments I add in as I write. I couldn't decide if they were funny or annoying. Also, I'd like to thank the Starbound2, author of the little Joey-sleeping Tristan-Serenity scenario review, for making me laugh. ^______^
Chapter Eight: Why Can't We Be Friends?
Before going ahead to what happened after Tristan fell from the escape hatch onto Kaiba, let us take a moment to review everyone's current status!
Yami Yugi was not having a good day. He had gotten into a fight with Yugi, tried to beat up Bakura, and had to sit through Ryou's farts and Joey's snoring. On top of all of that, he had had to deal with scary psycho-murderer Mai (who was actually hard to tell apart from normal Mai). Just when he thought he would have a little relief, a little peace from Mai, Kaiba, whom HE HAD RESCUED!, had blown up at him! All because of some stupid coat.
Bakura, similarly, was not in a pleasant mood. He had a large bump on his head from the telephone receiver that Kaiba had thrown at him earlier, and it was aching terribly. He had preferred to sit and watch the elevator doors slowly squash Kaiba's head like a bug (which he had decided was the perfect death for him, even if he didn't get the credit for it), but Yami had thrown him into the elevator doors and made him help. What a meanie, he thought, glaring at Yami, whose eyes were closed and kind of twitching, the way that electricity seems to affect people after they get "electrocuted" by an electric fence in movies.
Ryou and Tea were unconscious. Not much to clear up there.
Mai was still in crazy-murderer mode, and was struggling frantically in the corner to free herself from her bonds, which were made of the bottom of Kaiba's once-favorite trench coat. Joey cowered in the opposite corner, unsure of what he had done (this time) to enact such rage and hatred. Mai had stopped growling because she was currently overly-salivating, like, say, a mad dog, or someone who has swallowed bubble bath.
Kaiba was crushed to the floor underneath Tristan, (all together now: ouch!) who had fallen into him from above. [Now, if that isn't divine intervention, I don't know what is!]
Yugi stood close to the back wall of the elevator. His heart was pounding from the fear that Kaiba would tear his throat out from a few seconds earlier. Smiling with relief, he remembered his missing tooth. Growling in anger, he kicked Tea, who was lying on the floor, unconscious. His foot came into contact with her side and she oomph-ed. Yugi threw his head back and laughed evilly. It would have been the perfect moment—
[Let's go over the context clues of that sentence, shall we? Key words: would have.]
— except his (what everyone had thought were) bangs took that moment to fall backwards off of his head, over his now mashed hair. Everyone (conscious, not tied up, and standing), including Yugi, gasped.
Yami spoke first. "Yugi!" he wheezed, clutching his heart with his hand. "HOW COULD YOU?!"
Yugi dived onto the floor to snatch up what had apparently been one of those fake ponytails that had been changed and shaped into bangs. "This isn't what it looks like!" he cried, frantically trying to put the "bangs" back on his head.
"Yugi…" Bakura breathed. "You…you WEAR FAKE HAIR?!"
Yami had buried his face in his hands and was sobbing. Bakura stepped on Ryou to get over to him, and Yami began to sob into his shoulder. "I THOUGHT OUR HAIR NATURALLY LOOKED ALIKE, YUGI!" he sobbed. "WHAT NEXT, AM I GONNA FIND OUT YOU WEAR CONTACTS AND GOT A NOSE JOB?!"
Yugi gasped. "Who told you?" he demanded. "Was it Grandpa? I'm gonna— "
Yami began to sob harder. "Shut up, you stupid little monster!" snapped Bakura. "You're only making it worse! Go do us a favor and die somewhere!"
Yugi's face wrinkled up and he began to wail. Combined with Yami's heaving sobs, it produced quite a chorus.
[Ah, yes. The soundtrack to "Seven Guys, Two Girls, and One @#$&! Elevator" is now available at your local K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Target, and other fine stores. Half of all proceeds go to the Yugi's Tooth Fund.]
By this time, Kaiba had regained his senses. He was still trapped underneath the large, heavy Tristan, who had apparently gone to sleep on top of him and was trying to hug him in his sleep. "GET OFF OF ME!" screamed Kaiba, struggling from under Tristan, who rolled off of him and into Tea. He instinctively wrapped his arms around her, and she woke up screaming and breathing heavily and pushed him off. She sat up, noticed Yami and Yugi crying, and quietly lay back down, deciding it was safer to be unconscious. [And you didn't think she was smart!] Tristan, undaunted by this display, rolled to the other side and into Ryou. Ryou wrapped his arms around Tristan, who quickly shoved them off and rolled far away to the other side of the elevator, snoring loudly.
Kaiba struggled to his feet, breathing loudly and eyes wild. It was quite strange to see Kaiba with a short coat instead one of his usual trench coats. Kaiba slowly turned around to face Yami, whom he evidently deemed responsible for the loss of his coat.
Yugi, who was now standing behind Kaiba, suddenly began to laugh. He stopped crying and laughed helplessly, dropping to his knees. Tears of mirth streamed down his face as he laughed, clutching his stomach in pain. Tea, who was also behind Kaiba, got up, followed Yugi's pointing finger with her eyes, and snorted out her own laughter.
Kaiba whirled around to face the hysterical Yugi and Tea. Yami and Bakura, who were now exposed to Kaiba's backside, began to laugh as well. Yami wiped away his tears, laughing like a hyena, and Bakura fell over as the laughter racked his body.
"WHAT'S SO @#)*&% FUNNY?!" demanded Kaiba, turning around as he tried to look at his back. This turning around showed Mai and Joey his backside, and they too began to laugh wildly.
Kaiba frantically ran his hands from the top of his back down, and suddenly froze when he felt the large whole in the seat of his pants. As his hands made contact, the elevator again erupted in even more frenzied laughter.
"So— so that's why you always wear long coats!" gasped out Yugi between laughs.
Kaiba's face turned as red as the carpet in the elevator when he remembered the underpants he had selected that morning—
"Hel-lo, kitty!" added Tea, who again erupted in uncontrollable laughter.
— white cats with the words "Hello Kitty" spelled out in the pink yarn they were playing with.
He turned on Mai first. "YOU SHOULDN'T BE LAUGHING, YOU *&@$!" he screamed. "IT HAPPENED TO YOU FIRST, REMEMBER?!"
But Mai was laughing too hard to answer. Plus, she still had part of his coat stuffed in her mouth.
Furious, Kaiba stormed over to his corner from before and plopped down, burying his face in his arms.
The laughter eventually died down, but no one would ever forget the sight of Kaiba's "Hello Kitty" boxers. The peaceful (yeah, right) silence from before resumed the elevator, and things settled down a bit.
Suddenly, Kaiba, who had been hiding his face since the underwear incident, stuck his head up, eyes alert, and moved forward to snatch his briefcase. He frantically tried to open it, and fumbled the combination because he was moving so fast.
"Jeez, what's the hurry?" asked Joey from another corner. "You got a sewing kit in there, eh Kaiba?" A few laughs responded to this joke, and Joey was greatly encouraged. Unfortunately, Kaiba appeared not to have heard, so Joey decided to try again. "I personally think you should use some pink thread. Yeah, it'll go real nice with your underwear."
But Kaiba wasn't listening. He had succeeded in opening his briefcase, and began to empty it desperately. Everyone watched as he tossed out lots of papers, some pens, and…a cell phone.
As Kaiba held up the cell phone it seemed to glow with an unearthly white light. Heavenly music played and all were in awe of the indescribable beauty of the cell phone.
However, it wore off pretty quickly when Yami snapped, "YOU HAD THAT IN THERE THE WHOLE TIME AND DIDN'T TELL US?!"
Kaiba looked up and found himself surrounded by seven pairs (Ryou had woken up again) of angry eyes, the kind of eyes that you see on an angry mother grizzly bear when she has found you kicking one of her cubs. Kaiba nearly wet his pants.
Suddenly, everyone (except for Mai and Tristan) at once lunged for the phone.
"IT'S MINE!"
"LET GO!"
"RELEASE THE PHONE!"
"GIVE IT TO ME!"
"OW!"
"GIMME THE &@^#$% PHONE!!"
Kaiba finally succeeded in kicking everyone away and he quickly dialed a number. Everyone leaned forward anxiously. They could hear the phone ring once, twice, when suddenly they suddenly heard a voice!
"Your phone is out of batteries! Please recharge and place your call later! We are sorry for the inconvenience!"
Silence.
"@(#&$^%@! IT!" screamed Kaiba. He "aaarrggg-ed" and threw his cell phone as hard as he could in anger.
[Oh no. Not again, Kaiba!]
As mentioned earlier, there is a limit as to how far one can throw something in an elevator.
"OWWWW!" screamed Bakura. "MY HEAD!" He clutched his head, which was burning with terrible pain, and snatched the cell phone that had landed right on his bump from before. He dived for Kaiba, but was intercepted by Ryou, Yugi, Joey, and Yami, who frantically tried to hold him back. He roared in anger and blew them away with his evil, ancient powers.
Kaiba whimpered and backed into the corner once more.
Suddenly, a flash of light filled the elevator and Bakura was forced into his corner by a magical band of white light, which was enacted by Yami. He howled and fought, but could not get up. Fire and brimstone danced in his eyes.
"I will say this once, Kaiba, and I'm going to use small words so you'll be sure to understand," said Yami very quietly and carefully. "You had really, really better have a good Plan B, or we'll set Mai AND Bakura on you. Capish?"
Bakura held Kaiba's now-flaming cell phone up, scowling maliciously.
Mai growled at Kaiba from the corner and her eyes glowed as red as his face had been before.
Kaiba spoke quickly. "Look, I'm going to take apart the dueling system I invent"— here he pulled open one section of the briefcase to reveal the handheld dueling devices he had used to duel Yugi at Duelist Kingdom— "to create a transmitter radio so we can radio for help."
This actually seemed reasonable to everyone in the elevator, and they slowly nodded in agreement. [Then again, if Kaiba had told them that he was going to turn into a fish and magically disappear from the elevator into another dimension through a rock, they would have found it equally reasonable. Remember the stuck-in-elevator-I.Q. drop?]
Kaiba began to work. He pried apart his system using his fancy pens, and quickly took apart the insides and began to put things together. The elevator was silent except for the noise Kaiba made as he worked and the sound of Mai's heavy breathing. She still wanted to kill Joey, but would definitely settle for Kaiba at that moment. Bakura preferred to sit and watch silently. His theory was that if he stared at Kaiba long enough, the duelist would catch on fire.
After about twenty minutes, Kaiba had come up with a strange-looking blue plastic "radio" (as he called it) that would supposedly allow the occupants of the elevator to contact someone to call help for them and eventually get them out of the elevator. He began to fiddle with it some more, and adjusted its "antennae." Everyone held their breath as the sound of radio static filled the elevator. Turning a small knob on the side slowly, Kaiba listened for anything resembling a voice. He continued to turn it, but no voice of any kind could be heard, just loud, annoying static. Finally, when the knob had almost gone completely around and everyone was about to give up…they heard something!
"Fredag natt og lysene er lave…looking ut for et sted dra. Hvor de leker den riktige musikken, som får inn i sving, De De' kommer ve lete etter en konge. Enhver er den guy…everything er fin, De De' ang i modus for en dans…and når De får sjansen…you er den dansende dronningen, ung og søt bare sytten. Dansende dronning, føler det slår fra tambourine, å ja. De danser, De kan jive, har tiden av Deres liv…"
Silence, except for "Dansende Dronning" from the radio.
"Hey!" Tea said suddenly. "This is a lot like my favorite song, "Dancing Queen!"
Everyone stared at her. "Only it's in English," she added meekly.
Yami sighed. "It evidently doesn't work. Just turn it off," he said wearily.
Kaiba nodded and unplugged the main wire to his device, but "Dancing Queen" was still playing (in Norwegian, if you were wondering). Frowning, he unplugged another wire, then another, but the song continued to blare. Frantic now, he pulled apart everything wildly, but the volume only seemed to increase.
"Make it stop, Kaiba!" Joey demanded, covering his ears.
"Mmm hmm hmm, hmm hmm hmm, hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm," Tea hummed along, snapping her fingers to the beat. Everyone glared at her, but she only smiled and said, "I like this song!"
Kaiba threw his briefcase at her. Ouch.
And the heis (that's elevator in Norwegian!) didn't move!